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[caolanmadden]

So excited to be part of the Bernadette Mayer cluster in P45, in a discussion of the collaborative Midwinter Day poetry project I worked on with 30 other poets on December 22, 2018!

[caolanmadden]

Very grateful to Meredith Martin for including my essay on Aurora Leigh in the “Women’s Poetry, Women’s Vision, Women’s Power” cluster in the Winter 2019 issue of Victorian Studies and powerfully connecting it to Dr. Blasey Ford’s testimony, which haunted so many of us at NAVSA (& elsewhere) last fall. The cluster and the issue are packed with great stuff, including essays on Julia Margaret Cameron’s poetry and photography, “Christina Rossetti’s Botanical Women,” and essays & responses by Talia Schaffer, Tricia Lootens, and Lech Harris, among others! https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/victorianstudies.61.issue-2

[caolanmadden]

Five amazing poems by Becca Klaver!! I’m in one of these & was there for at least one more but I feel like I’m in them all (maybe you will too!!!).

FIVE POEMS  By Becca Klaver

Witches of Space & Time

When Caolan commented to say she was at a rest stop in Darien

my first thought was   upon a peak in Darien

and the second was   Historically, or was it geographically inaccurate?

but when I turned off the footnotes of my mind

I realized, I, too, am near a peak in Darien, which is to say I am also in Connecticut, on a Greyhound bus heading back to New York, and if we time this right, we can wave across I-95.

For a while I stared at cars in a carsick way

latching my vision onto license plates

but soon I began receiving updates via text.

We told each other what we knew of our coordinates in space and time—

milemarkers & marinas Burger Kings & Chinese Buffets food gas lodging & scenic overlooks.

Meanwhile my feed fed me Wangechi Mutu National Coming Out Day the zeitgeist of witches and tips for making your skin look less tired.

When Caolan texted Hooot! I swiped over and typed SUCCESS! on the thread we had going.

I thought I had missed her

but when I asked if she had a busted front left fender

indeed she did.

For all the looking down and typing

we miss each other

but I saw you on I-95 with my own two eyes

and told you the traffic would clear up on your side

we used our eyes and our tools

our tools and our eyes to find

that flash overlap of space and time

or what they call

coincidence  

[caolanmadden]

Becca's poem. Those nice male allies with their Masculine Support!

The Allies Prepare Politely

by Becca Klaver

All the men go a day without women

All the men pick up a Chore Boy® to scrub the pans

All the men wash and rinse and dry and know cycles

All the men notice subtle cues

All the men ask follow-up questions with curiosity

All the men smize while handing us a glass

All the men knew to buy a peachy rosé

All the men nod their heads knowingly

All the men feel u

All the men apologize when they walk in our paths

All the men keep their knees togetherish on the train

All the men admit their salaries

All the men sit with their softness

All the men take back what was taken from them

All the men breathe before cursing

All the men walk away before throwing things

All the men point to faces with feelings on laminated sheets

All the men open up to all the other men

All the men take the time to wonder about privilege

All the men do all these things without ever mentioning them at all

All the men head to bed with the humble glow of care

[caolanmadden]

Just in time for Halloween: me doing a goofy/creepy reading of VAST NECROHOL for Black Warrior Review

[caolanmadden]

& I have two trashy glittery poems lucky issue #7 of glitterMOB, wow!

glitterMOB 7 is here!!!

and it wants to go on a date with you!

here are some things about it:

glitterMOB is every whale gene with Peter Milne Greiner glitterMOB is between a star and a flower with Ashley Opheim glitterMOB is smoking on the balcony with Katie Longofono glitterMOB is matter, not matter-of-fact with Leila Ortiz glitterMOB is a real life watermark with Mary Boo Anderson glitterMOB is hey, you are my best place for winter with Emily Corwin glitterMOB is the crime report plays the casting call with Joshua Allen Aiken glitterMOB is cactus scruff and cursive with Chelsea Velaga glitterMOB is you never should have loved her with Caolan Madden glitterMOB is huffing cat shit with Katy Cousino glitterMOB is 16 different televisions going at once with Boona Daroom glitterMOB is showgirl. soldier. seahorse. sunset. with Margaret Graber glitterMOB is pacing alone in a bedroom with Zoe Dzunko glitterMOB is oh thaaaaat’s what you mean by haircut with Becca Human glitterMOB is I feel like I have to wear heels everyday with Ambar Navarro glitterMOB is guessing the wine is gone with Henry Finch glitterMOB is clogging its toilet and saving photos with Sarah Sgro glitterMOB is I picked it out just for you with Jessica Baer glitterMOB is steady backstroke across a sea of curdled milk with Rebecca Beauchamp glitterMOB is prone to tearing with Kelly Lorraine Andrews glitterMOB is dreams are harder to tell than jokes with Kenyatta Garcia glitterMOB is an earthen procession of pearls with Christine Stoddard glitterMOB is doing a little robot dance with Stephon Lawrence glitterMOB is dust, planets, ah with Jessica Scicchitano

http://www.glittermobmag.com

[caolanmadden]

guys I am starting to have some poems in the world! here are some of my orc poems in Cartridge Lit, a video-game-themed literary journal!

[caolanmadden]

ANTI-SURVEILLANCE FEMINIST POET HAIR&MAKEUP PARTY 

Clara Lipfert, Natalie Eilbert, Emily Brandt, Marina Weiss, Carina Finn, Becca Klaver, Jennifer Tamayo (Feb 2014)

*

Stephanie Young, originator of the project, after a Swiss fashion mag published this photo with no caption, no credit, no context, just as Brooklyn women’s makeup: “Anything you do with your (young, attractive) female body to critique its commodity status will get recuperated as fashion. No matter what. You can never go ugly enough. Except when you are. And then it won’t matter. You can have your body back when they’re done with it. By then you’ll probably hate it as much as they do.”

[caolanmadden]

Allowed To

(for/in solidarity with Purvi Patel) Months I was only a vessel, months steered by a Krang-brain in my belly, months a ghost ate all my meals for me, only cereal only watermelon, months the operator looked at me in the bathroom mirror at the Showcase Seekonk & made me put my hands under the dryer, made me open the door, made me hate a movie for the first time in my life, months I handed the apparatus over for checkups, the apparatus was working well, months I asked for instructions on working the apparatus, months of faithful service to the instructions, faithful service of the apparatus, wind it down at night, hate that city block, hate that toy store, hate that sandwich, hate that book, feed the apparatus, begin to wait to die The t-shirt that said MINE over a screenprint of a uterus. “Not just yours,” Paul’s mother said. “Not anymore.” Paul said, “but the politics of the shirt” The difference it makes when there’s a man to remind everyone that it’s still your body. The difference it makes to be one of two white bodies. Three potentially white bodies. The difference it makes as a wedded wife. The difference it makes to be two white bodies wedded together, two gold rings, the language of perfect happiness, language of We Want This. NuvaRing I threw in the trash. Not making another appointment. Tequila gimlet, prosecco, boxed wine, joint. Beer on a boat. Bad cigarette. Forgot about folic acid. Trying not trying. “There’s nothing they can do about it, the fuckers!” Thrill of nobody knowing. I’m just allowed to. Am I allowed to? Months of bodily joy. Months beginning in a hotel pool in California. Maternity bathing suit, February, floating, the water moving against my body, my body moving against the water, here it is again, my body, displacing the beautiful world, becoming the beautiful world. Months on the couch in Brooklyn, holding Paul’s hand, joy in my blood like drugs, a huge slow blossom. Months of getting to know you, Jane, though I wouldn’t call you Jane, still called you it. Months of getting to love you as you made yourself known as a squirmer, kicker, not just a Krang-brain, months of getting to love you for your kindness, little pusher, making me feel so good, knowing for the first time in years what it feels like not to feel anxious The difference it makes to sit on a fucking couch in Brooklyn, to swim in a fucking pool, fucking maternity bathing suit, fucking half-caff latte, fucking holding hands, fucking. Fucking late-night nurseline. The difference it makes that I called and said “I’m having some spotting, I’m 11 weeks.” The difference it makes nuchal translucency the difference it makes genetic screening the difference it makes fucking OB practice in Soho fucking prenatal screening for PPD risk factors fucking anatomy scan fucking if you would consider terminating The difference it makes that this is all in fucking English The difference it makes that my mom The politics of the fucking shirt Months of am I allowed to. Swimming in the 40-degree Atlantic, maternity bathing suit, huge body displacing huge ocean, awe. A body in hot water in a body in cold water. Bodily joy. The sky. “My extremities would freeze first, right?” I asked Patrick. We agreed that I’d lose a toe first. We lay on the beach burning & shivering. Later Molly said “your lips were blue, I didn’t want to tell you then.” Google “hypothermia fetus” Google “avoid swimming pregnancy” Google “ocean cold bacteria” Google “mucus plug” Google “staying up all night miscarriage” Google “iced coffee miscarriage” Google “dissertation chapter miscarriage” Google “lavender miscarriage” Google “soft cheese” Google “Listeria” Google “mimosa” Google “mg caffeine per cup chart” Google “paint fumes pregnancy” Google “Nyquil tetragen” Google "tetragen teratogen" Google “Tay Sachs Irish American” Google “termination 22 weeks NY legal” Google “epidural breastfeeding” Google “premature amniotic rupture risk of infection” Google “Cochran review staying home” Google “cytocec risks” Google “cervical check” Google “nipple stimulation” Google “evening promise oil” Google “optimal delivery position face presentation vaginal birth” The difference that your fucking search history makes. The difference that showing up with printouts makes. In the middle of the night. The message board that says it wasn’t your fault the message board that says there was nothing you could have done that says when you’re ready you can try again that says you can recover at home you can labor at home you can call the nurseline you can go to L&D but they’ll just send you home The difference it makes to be able to go home

[caolanmadden]

doing napowrimo again, as will become obvious!

[caolanmadden]

Who Deserves What: On Hierarchies of Blamelessness

Someone left a comment on my piece about _Gone Girl_ (http://weird-sister.com/2015/01/29/but-she-really-was-gone-girl-and-the-false-accusation/) and since it wasn't a comment about how I'm a disgusting human being or how I'm probably single, I wrote a long comment in response, and Paul pointed out it might as well be a blog post on its own. So, here you go:

Abby February 25, 2015 at 12:30 pm

I find your comparison with Lolita incredibly disturbing. Lolita’s character is an orphaned child in the hands of a legal guardian who has sex with her. Amy’s character is a grown woman who’s option is to face the crime she’s committed or attempt to manipulate a man by giving him power over her. The point is, Amy did have a place to go. She wasn’t a “bad girl” in the same way that Lolita, a sexually curious tween, but a criminal facing a man with a dangerous obsession with her or the  consequences of her crimes. She chose the man, and while this does not make everything past this decision consensual, it does make her an adult who entered a dangerous situation, had ways to leave this situation with everyone’s lives still intact, and instead chose to stay and commit murder to save her reputation instead. Gone Girl is a novel full of grey areas between bad and worse, and I think it’s dangerous to say that the character should be as blameless as a child who was continually abused by the only male adults in her life.

my response:

Hi Abby! Thanks for your comment. Yes, you’re absolutely right that, unlike Lolita, Amy Dunne had the option of escaping her abuser by going to prison, so to say she had “absolutely nowhere else to go” was a bit of a rhetorical flourish. I hope it’s clear in my post that the only comparison I’m drawing between Amy and Lolita is actually a comparison between Desi and Humbert: both Desi and Humbert are men who knowingly exploit the power they have over vulnerable girls or women. I certainly don’t think Lolita is as “bad” as Amy; I don’t think Lolita is bad at all. Amy is an adult who has done immoral, illegal things, and Lolita is a child. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, if we made a list of all the characters in literature and ranked them from guiltiest to most innocent, Humbert would be guiltier than Desi, and Amy would be much guiltier than Lolita.

But part of my point in this post is that Amy’s guilt as a character–the fact that she is a very bad girl–shouldn’t get in the way of our ability to recognize that what Desi does to her is wrong, and that it is in fact rape. That doesn’t mean Amy had zero other options; it doesn’t mean Amy is justified in killing Desi; it doesn’t mean Amy is a good person; it doesn’t mean what has happened to Amy is equivalent to the abuse of a child like Lolita; it doesn’t mean Desi deserves to die. It just means that in using manipulation and threats to keep Amy at his house and to coerce her into entering a sexual relationship with him, Desi is committing a crime. And I think we as a culture don’t recognize that crime as rape in part because we demand that rape victims be “blameless.”

I think we also have a really disturbing tendency to think of rape as a fitting punishment for villains, something that bad people “deserve.” So a lot of readers were excited when Amy was cornered by Desi because she was getting some kind of karmic justice (or poetic justice–remember, this is fiction, and we expect the narrative to deliver justice in a way that real life can’t.) Viewers are often delighted by what happens to Marsellus Wallace in “Pulp Fiction.” In real life, we tacitly or actively support systematic rape and/or the threat of rape within the prison system as part of the routine punishment of criminals. Even though _Gone Girl_ is fiction, I think the logic that considers rape an appropriate punishment for a bad character has dangerous implications for our lives in the real world.

[caolanmadden]

In my media blitz promoting my major intervention in BSC/Mr. Mom studies, I forgot about tumblr!!! Thanks to tavie for the link.

The Gender Politics of Kristy and Mr Mom: What We Already Know (http://weird-sister.com/2015/02/03/the-gender-politics-of-kristy-and-mr-mom-what-we-currently-know/) is an important read.

[caolanmadden]

"Ever wanted a women-centric history book to hand to a kid? This March, publisher City Lights/Sister Spit is releasing an exciting new book that tells the stories of 26 important American women, one for each letter of the alphabet. Rad American Women A-Z features biographies of women from Angela Davis to Zora Neale Huston. Author Kate Schatz and illustrator Miriam Klein Stahl highlight a great selection of women—the group is diverse in terms of race, era, and in their field of work, ranging from scientists to writers and activists."

Read more and see three Rad Women biographies on Bitch Media.

[caolanmadden]

When I was reading Gillian Flynn's novel Gone Girl—sometime in early October, right before the movie came out—there was this one plot twist I was scared of reading, and as I got further and further...

[caolanmadden]

Oh god

[caolanmadden]

Yeah, what the heck, #DAI? You also can't date Varric, which is also messed up. I was really excited about Vivienne & she is still my best mage friend, but uh let her have some complexity & love to go with her gorgeous hennin, plz.

Racism in Dragon Age: Inquisition

Racism in the gaming world is nothing new, but I had high hopes for *DAI.  There are several visible *PoCs sprinkled throughout the game’s *NPCs, and one of the most interesting companions in the game—Vivienne—is a beautiful, powerful, glamorous mage and Black woman from *Orlais. And not only is Vivienne Black, but she actually looks Black.  They didn’t make her look mixed or make her look like a White person with black skin.  Not to mention, she is the most physically attractive character in the game.  I was impressed with the character design.

Read More

[caolanmadden]

This is a suicide prevention hotline for trans folks, by trans folks. I’m REALLY concerned about “suicide contagion” after the tragic death of Leelah Alcorn, so please reblog this as vigorously as you can.